


A Close Call

by tea_petty



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:14:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22264711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tea_petty/pseuds/tea_petty
Summary: Muriel has a brush with death.
Relationships: Muriel (The Arcana)/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 52





	A Close Call

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to my Tumblr, tea-petty, for @asrasdarling, featuring their apprentice, Jenna.

Jenna’s arms trembled – the bow she was holding was made of a light wood, but lacquered in the apprentice’s fatigue, it might as well have been made of lead. A wisp of light sparked halfheartedly at the string where Jenna’s fingers were before disappearing. Jenna drew in a deep breath, let the air fill her up, felt herself expand. She thought there was strength to this tautness, she assumed so long as she kept this breath inside her, the light at her fingers could be molded into reliable arrows, trusted to find their target.

She was wrong. She was also running on fumes at this point.

Her arms gave a spastic quiver again, and then gave out under the tension. The light dissipated, like she’d been a silly child trying to hold sunlight all along.

Jenna sighed, her body slumping. It was like the air was iron too – the effort to draw it in almost too much. She had to though, and so she did it again. A clammy sweat had formed at Jenna’s brow, which furrowed deeply. Her face was drawn in a pained expression and she grunted, her fingers summoning at the string of her bow once more. It was a feathered warmth at her fingertips, a sinewy thread of light – and it was still too heavy for her to pull.

After a few moments, the wisp of light reappeared. It trembled along with Jenna – magic was an extension of her. It could only be as strong as she was, and at the moment, that wasn’t very strong at all. 

Jenna gritted her teeth and the wisp solidified, straightening at her bow.

It _must_ be as strong as her.

Her fingers hooked around the string and drew it back to her cheek. The warmth was tempered now, almost solid in her hands. Jenna forced herself to reconcile the reality of it; the pull was real, the effort she was expending in pulling the string was real – and most importantly, the arrow, should it find its way to the void where Vulgora’s heart should of rested, the effects of that would be very real as well.

She felt the gritty sheen of dirt slicked to her hand in sweat. She smelled steel and felt the abrasive metal at her face. Unwaveringly, she took in one more breath and held it captive to still how her heart rocked her.

All of this happened slowly in her head, where fatigue struggled to process the quick sashay of battle in real time, like a dancer’s hips. Though Jenna had not dared to watch Muriel through the heat of battle, she knew he’d be light on his feet to match, despite his size. As Morga and Muriel grappled with Vulgora and Lucio respectively, Jenna covered he both of them the best she could. It was a lot of magic to expend though; the illusion of Morga that set the trap, the arrows she never technically got back. 

Jenna, still sustaining her marker’s poise, followed Morga’s and Vulgora’s forms as they writhed around each other, vipers twisting, cycling around each other hoping for an opening to the other’s throat. The notch at Jenna’s bow seemed always to be just a few centimeters too slow. A desperate sort of anger flared in Jenna – this was not her fatigue, it was fatigue she was holding for someone else, someone with less at stake. This simmering resentment made her hasty in action but not of mind, which made her clumsy, which made her drag even further.

Morga had Vulgora’s attention, but even she was on her last legs. Jaeger circled above, occasionally sweeping downward to swipe his talons at his master’s opponent. They glanced off Vulgora like he was made of straw. Jaeger’s screech pealed through the air – the bells ringing before the start of a funeral dirge. 

The tip of the arrow stilled to align with Vulgora’s head. Perfect.

With a small, pained hitch in her breath, Jenna released, and the arrow sailed pristinely through the air. Jenna watched it and for a few moments she felt the levity in its trajectory. This could be it; maybe they would have this win. It was a perfect shot – it took the last of Jenna’s energy – _but it was a perfect shot_.

Jenna’s legs wobbled, but she willed herself to stand tall as she watched this final arrow meet its target.

Vulgora never saw the arrow.

In fact, if it were not for how Vulgora raised her hand – gleaming like steel talons in the moonlight – and closed it around the body of the arrow, perfectly in the median between head and nock, Jenna wouldn’t have even thought she’d noticed it.

_No!_

Jenna collapsed to the ground, lips trembling, shoulders shaking with her heaving breath. Her fury shook her, and that was all her body could delegate to it. There was nothing to cry, no strength to hit, no sound to scream. Just her ragged breathing and the dirt pressing into her form from below, like it was trying to reclaim it. With any more misfortune, it might’ve.

Vulgora’s hand barely so much as twitched before the arrow snapped in half. The two ends fell and disintegrated into nothingness before ever reaching the ground. And that was all that was left of Jenna’s final, tremendous effort.

Vulgora turned around, her crocodile lips spreading widely over gleaming teeth. She blinked and even that felt monstrous, her eyes yellowed and watery. Sickly, though with the strength of a hundred healthy men – a monster. If eyes were the window to ones soul, than it was all too clear, what festered inside Vulgora.

Vulgora prowled towards Jenna.

“How rude of me to leave you out.”

Jenna lifted her chin, meeting Vulgora’s gaze. She shook harder. She did not move any more than that. She wanted to say something back. Something angry. Something that would bring Vulgora to their knees. Jenna had no such thing to say. Instead, she watched this harbinger of carnage prowl towards her, licking their lips, sizing her up – what would bleed the most? Which bone would snap the most satisfyingly?

Would it be better or worse to go first? An end to this draining fatigue was all Jenna wanted now if she could not have her victory. That being said, she didn’t like the idea of the great beyond – shrouded in mystery – and she even less liked the notion of venturing into it alone.

 _Don’t go where I cannot follow_ ; that’s what she’d told Asra when he used to go off to distant lands to leave her to man the shop. Now she’d be doing the same to Muriel, and he was scarcely a man to follow at all. A fluttering of panic stirred in her. What if he couldn’t go with her? What if he didn’t?

Her breath caught again, shallow, and from there, Jenna couldn’t seem to keep it. It struggled a bit more, and Vulgora relished it, thinking it the result of herself.

Truthfully though, and infinitely more terrifying, Jenna did not know how to exist in a world where Muriel did not.

Jenna was mesmerized, stuck under the influence of what she truly believed to be the last moments of her life. It wasn’t like how people said at all – that your life replayed in your head. Jenna would’ve wanted to watch it all over more than almost anything else – second only to living. She’d have done anything to be able to see it all one more time; owning the shop with Asra, meeting Muriel, that night at the inn, the kiss…

She was trapped here though, in this crystalized moment that seemed to hold an eternity in it. An aternity of grieving what might’ve been, an eternity of wondering if what people said of death was true – you can’t bring anything with, _anyone_ with. 

This particular thought felt like the clearest, sharpest thing to have passed through her mind in a while, which was dulled in her exhausted state. It pierced her just as well. Vulgora still had not killed her. What was she waiting for? Jenna, had she had the strength to rise, might’ve lunged forward and slapped Vulgora’s wormy sneer from her face. It had soured like milk, overstaying its welcome, expired. Was it possible to be late for your own death bed?

Something large loomed on the outskirts of Jenna’s field of vision, hovering formidably, and then stepping in front of her. 

“Muriel,” she croaked, “wait.”

If she could’ve reached an arm out to catch him in it, pull him to her, stop him from drawing closer to the monster before her, she would’ve. She could not.

Muriel stood between Jenna and Volgora – a wall of muscle, though more notable was the emerald fire of his eyes, and the scars scoring white across his browned skin. They seemed an invitation for Vulgora to make her mark, though for most, it was a warning sign as no one who ever did had ever emerged to speak of it. Muriel wielded his wooden staff, but looking at him, Jenna did not believe the staff in hand was the weapon.

Jenna could hardly breathe now as she watched him, all the while, Vulgora still wore that slippery grin.

She accepted Muriel’s challenge, all too happy to fix her stare on more amusing prey. Muriel’s gaze flicked back to where Jenna was cowering behind him.

“Stay back,” he said, his voice stone with which to build a wall and hide her away from the horrors he’d faced. “ _Please._ ”

Jenna felt herself wilt under the implication but didn’t dare disobey. If he went anywhere, she’d be sure to follow.

“Oh yes, this will be _much_ more fun,” Vulgora flashed her teeth. 

Muriel seemed unfazed, and Jenna had to remind herself that this wasn’t his first fight, not by a long shot. It was hard though – watching a man who left one violent lifestyle for another on his search for peace. It had weathered him into someone harder than he’d ever intended to be.

No, that was wrong, Jenna decided, and perished the thought as soon as it had cropped up. To be weathered was to be tough and unfeeling, and that wasn’t her Muriel. In every look, Jenna caught a glimpse of someone afraid of how much she felt, in every kiss, he was so soft, so gentle, that Jenna could hardly believe those hands that held her had been used to do anything other than give and build, at all. He was tempered, by his experiences, wiser as a result – to call him weathered would be to make a call spurned of ignorance.

Vulgora surged forward, lunging like a predator pounces on prey, but Muriel was no easy pickings.

His eyes never left her, and when he moved, it was with a sort of gravity that felt as natural as the shifting slopes of mountains.

In a movement so quick it could hardly be traced, Vulgora’s gauntlets met his staff. The wood bent, straining against the force of her bloodlust, but it did not break. She rebounded, skittering away, and Muriel retracted the staff. He only had moments. When she lunged again, she was wielding a knife. 

The blade was clean, Jenna surmised, not from disuse so much as near ritualistic care.

Muriel again countered with his staff. The metal of the blade cuts about an eighth of an inch into the wood, notching it like a chained man marks the march of time, in a place where he might easily lose count. Still though, Vulgora did not breach the wooden barrier Muriel vigilantly kept.

The staff trembled against Vulgora’s force, though Muriel did not, as she tried to wrench her blade deeper into it. Vulgora’s grip on her knife loosened when she realized the ministration was futile, but her mirth remained. She _enjoyed_ the struggle.

“Yes, yes, all in good fun!” Vulgora bellowed.

The next time she grabbed the staff, she snapped it like she did with the arrow. It cracked with finality, and Jenna felt her face contort, muscles stiff beneath her mask of grime.

The only trace of distress from Muriel that could be seen was a bead of sweat that traced down the contour of his temple. He dodged Vulgora’s next blow. With the one after, he mostly did – only he couldn’t give her any more proximity to Jenna, and so the tip of one iron claw caught his exposed torso. The gash wasn’t terribly deep, but Jenna flinched at the sight of blood on him.

She had scarcely noticed it had started to rain until a low growl rumbled in the steely sky. Chilled wet drops pressed at her. If water could erode stone, why not her as well? She felt like she was melting into the ground, mixing with the soil already wetted with Muriel’s blood. 

If Jenna could’ve intervened, she would’ve. Her limbs were no longer hers to move though, succumbing to the authority of her injuries.

White light splintered through the sky, making the heavy wall of clouds look as if the universe’s maker had set his chisel to it, and brought the great, broad flat of his mallet against it, splitting the stone sky. What was that light seeping out of the cracks? The heavens leaking out onto the earth? 

Muriel’s and Volgora’s silhouettes clashed, intercepted. White light flashed again, momentarily bathing them in light before dousing them in shadows once more. From the darkness, they could’ve been embracing. Then with another bout of lightening came a snapshot of what truly was happening. Vulgora had one arm wrapped around Muriel, the other was buried in his chest.

“ _NO!_ ”

The shriek formed a word, but that was its only human quality. The frayed edges, and carnal response to trauma convinced Jenna that someone had taught a wounded animal to speak. That is, until Jenna would come to recognize the voice as being her own.

More blood dripped to the ground.

The sight felt deeply abrasive in itself. First, the droplets of blood, flecking to the ground in macabre petals. Then, watching this mountain of a man crash to the ground like it was the beginnings of Armageddon. Jenna had never seen him falter like this, had never seen his body bend like grass. Even with his reverent thoughtfulness, there was always something deeply serene about him. Perhaps it was his solitude, but Jenna had never even considered circumstances in which Muriel would’ve ever yielded.

Given his reputation from the Colosseum, she wasn’t sure anyone else had ever either.

Vulgora all but slithered away, the blood still wet on her gauntlets allowing her to delight in her slaying without risking sticking around. She was gone the next time Jenna raised her eyes to the horizon – soundless for someone who’s entire existence seemed so vicious, it appeared to rip a hole through time and space itself - but there was little time to care about that.

Jenna threw herself forward, using energy she didn’t have. She landed chin-first into the dirt, right beside Muriel, who was still.

“Muriel,” Jenna whimpered, eyes misting.

His torso was hard, motionless, and with that, gravely heavy. She pressed her palms to him, feeling for the man she could remember. He ran too hot and too cold. His blood burned her when it painted her skin, and the cold parts – she couldn’t bring herself to think about.

“Muriel,” she croaked again. 

He gave no response.

She lurched to an upright position and latched onto his body – seemingly growing heavier and stiller with each sluggish second. Her nails bit into his skin and she was tormented again, both by the idea of paining him further and with the hallowed hope that it would be enough to inspire life in him again; a flinch away, a batted hand her way – anything.

“Muriel, Muriel,” she jostled him.

His body shifted like hollow corn husks in the wind. Just as empty.

“Muriel, Muriel!”

His body didn’t respond to her pleas – her touches, her voice, and Jenna wasn’t used to that. Her face was hot – awash with her molten tears, streaking trails of clean through the grimy film of dirt and blood.

She continued to press at him, stroke at him, nose and croon at him until she realized that all of those things, were in fact the same thing; she was just trying to follow him.

The door had shut behind him though, as final as the grave. He had gone where she could not follow. 

The grief did not surprise her. Grief went with death as a steadfast companion. The panic however, Jenna was not prepared for. It fluttered in her chest like a startled bird, and then those flutters grew bigger and bigger until they churned a storm in her heart. 

Jenna keeled over, the noise that left her again, was not human, and it did not scare her this time, because she did not feel so human anymore. Her fists slammed against the ground, muted by the soft soil, brown, wet grains starting at her outburst. Even from the storm raging on inside of her, she was locked out, resigned to hosting such immense loss, without being able to partake and succumb.

Through the haze of sickening grief, Jenna felt a warm pressure at the small of her back. Had she been crouched at Muriel’s side so long that her legs had lost feeling? The pressure was persistent – too real to be a phantom spurned from her own limbs, too active to keep the company of death. The pressure gave her a light squeeze, and Jenna yelped.

Pulling back, Jenna blinked back wetness. Her panic was too big to relent immediately, but the winds slowed enough for her to squint through the curtain of rain. Her eyelids seemed to creak as she forced them open, breaking through the dirt and blood that rusted them shut, melded by sticky tears.

Through his own stewing blood and filth, a bleary, albeit _very alive_ eye peeked back at her.

“You’re alive!” she breathed, her lower lip erupting into a vicious tremble.

The force with which Jenna launched herself into the hulking, battered men before her was enough to pull what tentative breath lingered in his lungs. He winced, but the hand at the small of Jenna’s back squeezed, and it was all both of them could do not to openly weep.

From where her nose was buried into his chest, Jenna could feel the beginnings of a rumble start there. It took her a moment to realize that he was speaking to her.

“I wouldn’t…leave you,” he mumbled, his tired eyes still finding the energy to avoid meeting her gaze. 

Meanwhile, Jenna’s heart was singing. She launched herself at him again, this time careful to ease the impact of her body against his as her fingers caught his face. Then, her lips.

“I –“ she pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek, “was –“ a kiss to the corner of his mouth “ _frantic_.”

She ended at his lips and his cheeks burned.

“Are you quite finished?” Morga’s voice cut through the tender moment like a hot knife through butter. The expression on her face was no short of scathing. “My rat of a son is still out there, but by all means – gaze at each other some more.”


End file.
